The Collaborative Group Counseling Referral Process - Article Example

THE COLLABORATIVE GROUP COUNSELING REFERRAL PROCESS; ARTICLE REVIEW The Collaborative Group Counseling Referral Process Article Review ……….University Name…………………Unit Name……., Semester………, Academic Level……….Name of the professor……..Date of Submission…………………..Students all over the world encounter problems, which may be psychological, physical or social. In order to achieve their ultimate goal, intellectual development, such problems need to be dealt with professionally.

The reviewed article is about solving psychological problems of students through collaborative group counseling process. This process involved understanding the psychological problems that students face, and the best people to do so are teachers since they interact more often with students in the course of learning. According to American School Counselor Association (2002) teachers are able to notice students’ behaviors that are indicative of distress and as such require immediate attention because they work with students more regularly.

The school counselor and the intern got the information from teachers is an open discussion and acted upon them. During the process they were keen to understand the emotional distress of various students in order to group similar cases together and handle them conveniently. For them to achieve this objective, they formulated research questions for the teachers. The questions mainly dwelled on the inquiry into the general behaviors of students.

For instance, what are the verbalizations of the students and how often and vigorous are same. They also wanted to know the circumstances that led to such behaviors. These research questions are meant to enable the counselor and the intern to get adequate information to group students into categories and deal with them in those segments. For the counselor and the intern to understand the psychological problems facing the students, they employed unstructured interview research method.

The interview did not have a set format but they prepared some guide questions in advance and ensured that the environment was conducive. During the interview they were able to develop more questions, depending on the answers, to be properly acquainted with the problems. They led the teachers to discuss the verbalizations of students, which they considered to exhibit psychological distress and as such needed professional intervention. Through this research method, the counselor and the intern got substantial amount of information that enabled them to group the students into different homogeneous categories, problem solving and divorce, and accorded them group counseling towards correcting the problems.

During the interview, the psychology intern and the counselor found out that the psychological problems that the students faced could be grouped into two; being divorce and problem solving. The problem solving groups were taught how to express their grievances positively coupled with constructive conflict solving techniques. This was to enable amicable solution of conflicts that arose. On the other hand, the divorce group comprised of those who suffered psychological disorders as a result of divorce or separation of their parents.

They were counseled on how to deal with the problems caused by divorce and separation and how to overcome them as a prerequisite to register better academic performance. Through evaluation of teachers, it was confirmed that, the collaborative group counseling process was simple, effective and accepted, and ought to be used in future to solve students’ psychological problems. The findings are very instrumental in the course of duty as a counselor. The teachers attested to the fact that collaborative group counseling referral process is simple and effective in solving student’s psychological problems.

It is simple since the teachers will help in diagnosing the problems and group counseling will save the agony of having to handle students individually. The collaborative group counseling referral process should therefore be encouraged in schools and even be improved to ensure students psychological needs are addressed efficiently and effectively.ReferenceAmerican School Counselor Association. (2002). The collaborative group counseling referral process: description and teacher evaluation. (Perspectives From The Field).

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